County: Dublin Site name: Drumanagh
Sites and Monuments Record No.: DU008-006001 Licence number: C786/E4805
Author: Christine Baker
Site type: Promontory fort
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 727236m, N 756210m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.538398, -6.085489
The Digging Drumanagh-Fingal Community Excavation Project 2018 was designed to address the research and knowledge gaps identified in the Drumanagh Conservation & Management Plan and aimed to investigate the original approach road to the Martello tower in order to inform an access plan for the site.
Excavation of two trenches (1-2) within Drumanagh Promontory Fort took place over 10 days between 21-31 May 2018.
Trench 1 measured 15m north-south x 4m extended across the width of the extant Martello roadway. It was excavated to subsoil to the west and south, to a maximum depth of 0.75m. Trench 2 measured 10m x 5m and natural subsoil was identified at 0.6m below ground level. It was situated to target the intersection of the Martello road with the paling and the path to the entrance to the Martello tower. It was depicted as highly disturbed on the 1999 geophysical survey.
The focus of the 2018 season of excavation at Drumanagh was the Martello road in the vicinity of the early 19th-century Martello tower, towards the eastern limit of the headland. The level of natural subsoil (hitherto unknown) was attained in both trenches; the nature and construction of the Martello road was investigated and the level of impact of its construction on earlier stratigraphy ascertained.
The loamy rich soil truncated by the construction of the Martello road contained evidence of that disturbance - 18th- and 19th-century pottery, clay pipes etc. as well as evidence for earlier activity. The presence of flint flakes and struck flint was not unexpected. This coastal zone of Fingal has long produced evidence for the processing of flint of Neolithic and Bronze Age date. Although in the early stages of research comparable material for the bone combs indicate a possible Iron Age date, while the glass bead and bone pins could also date from that period. The presence of two fragments of human remains in distinctly different features at either end of Trench 2 illustrates both the intensity of activity at Drumanagh across the millennia and the questions that remain to be answered.
Community Archaeologist, Fingal County Council
